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Posts: 214
Location: Beaver County, Pennsylvania | Just curious if this happens anywhere?
I'm sure somewhere along the way someone has put a musky or two into a large pond or privately owned lake. Anyone ever seen or heard of anything like this?
Could they survive in a body of water an acre or two in size? I'm assuming depth will play a big role in survival rates. |
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Posts: 4053
Location: Land of the Musky | If/when I get my own land I WILL have a few ponds and WILL have some pet musky and pike in them. They will only get the highest fat trout I can grow in my other pond(s)  My goal is to raise a state record musky before I die. Granted, it would not qualify as it would be in a private pond but just want to see if I can do it. The state record bass in CA was a state record because the DNR kept dumping in 10s of thousands of trout into the lake. Took them a while to figure out why hardly any trout were making it to any appreciable size...
As for the size of pond, my childhood friends father had a 2 acre pond and had two pike in it he bought back from a fishing trip. His father caught one (and released his pet) when I was there once and to me it was a 50lb pike but I am sure it was closer to 10-15lbs at the time. That was 5+ years after he had put it in. This was in the middle of Iowa but I do not know the depth of the lake. 25 years later and they do still live there....
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Posts: 214
Location: Beaver County, Pennsylvania | wow is that neat. you may have just peaked my interest as the idea of having your own musky pond/small lake is concerned. |
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Posts: 3518
Location: north central wisconsin | Yes, and it is alot of fun. We raise fish for our club, and a few years back, put 3 of them into a slightly bigger pond(the biggest have topped out at about 42" in this 2 acre pond). They are really fun to hand feed. Makes for some great experimentation, allowing us to see what 'really' can happen, conditioning-wise(interesting repeated behaviors, or changing behaviors, even after a long winter under ice). We've video taped alot of this activity, but mostly it is just alot of fun to take some kid down there for 'bluegills' and freak the hell out of them.
Edited by Reef Hawg 4/25/2008 8:36 AM
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Posts: 4053
Location: Land of the Musky | Reef Hawg
Go get some dog food and plate it with beef tallow. One summer of feeding that 42" muskie and he will weigh about 50lbs! LOL One fat obese fish you will have on your hands. Just make sure he has a couch and a TV to watch.
James |
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Posts: 457
| The biggest NE fish I've ever seen was in a 5 acre barrow pit. Estimated length of 54" when she was found dead. We had seen her several times over a 12 year period, even fished specifically for her, but to no avail.
Can it happen? Sure, does it? Sure. It's about water quality, more than any other factor. If there's forage of suitable size, well, all the better. I'd loved to have stuck that fish, for so many reasons... |
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Posts: 3518
Location: north central wisconsin | We do feed these fish bluegills and fatty 11" Whitebass until they are 'full' several times per week, not to mention the feed they get that swims in the pond, which is plenty to maintain a healthy diet. The fish are fat like little pigs. The pond is spring fed and the largemouth in it have grown to trophy size. I'd say that the pond is too small for the Muskies to grow any larger(aquarium effect as it is slightly less than 2 acres and not too deep). These were fish that we received from the DNR Spooner hatchery over the years for raising/stocking, so they should grow large in the proper conditions.
Edited by Reef Hawg 4/28/2008 10:36 AM
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Posts: 285
Location: NE Wisconsin | Jason
They might grow more then you think in the 2 acre pond.. There was a study with trout in hatchery jars. As long as they had food, O2 and fresh water, they kept growing until they were literally nose down in the jars. I grew 10+ inch bluegills in a 30 gal. tank, from thumb nail size. Good luck this year and sharpen those hooks.
Johnnie |
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Posts: 3518
Location: north central wisconsin | Well I don't know why 7-8 year old fish are only attaining 42" size then. Would be an interesting study, maybe, to put some fish from different hatcheries in there to see if they exhibit different growth rates. Someone have a couple to offer??
Thanks for the tips John! Good luck on W when the season opens.
Edited by Reef Hawg 4/28/2008 3:05 PM
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| found a 51" fish lake year dead in a small lake. |
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Posts: 32934
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | I have a friend who has kept muskies in ponds for years, using several strains of fish. No monsters after many years, and alot of money feeding them, but he still keeps a few and they ARE very cool to watch.
As far as small lakes, water quality and forage, etc seem to make or break the deal, and if any of that is marginal or bad, then getting old seems to help at least with Muskies. I know of several lakes up here that are under 240 acres that hold monsters, but if the pressure came and a few fish were killed, it'd be over. I shot some video this winter of a couple on a tiny lake. Self sustained population, no stocking for a couple decades and numbers...love that little lake!
Howie knows of a few too, further north.
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| I have a pond.
Yes it works.
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Posts: 43
Location: Warrenville,IL | Sorry. That was me. Jamie from customfish.
Anyway. I have a small 2.5 acre pond.
And yes it works.
It's amazing what can live in a pond. If you have crappies and/or shad..you can put in anything.
My family and I used to have land and a 1acre spring fed pong near Green Lake. I got my first 36" northern and many of my first 20" largemouth from there. We also had perch, bluegills and huge bullheads.
Anything is possible.
I fish some small private waters here (chicagoland) that have Neosho Strain Smallmouth Bass as well as Georgia Hybrid Greengills (meanest god d*** fish you'll ever catch pound for pound).
AND...once in a while we even get the occasional Meanmouth Bass (SM x LM hybrid).
All this around Chicago in some selct waters where these kinds of fish are NOT supposed to be nor thrive.
But basically look at it this way:
Can a muskie live in a tank in a Bass Pro Shop and do just fine?
Can a muskie live in a backyard pond and do fine?
Can a muskie live in a fishtank in your house or in a bait shop and do fine?
Yes.
They do just fine. They know exactly two things in life :
1) is it comfortable enough to live here
2) Is there food.
And if the pond doesn't freexe solid in winter or heat up to 100 in summer AND has shad or enough panfish/carp to sustain big largemouth....then it'll happily host a muskie per acre.
But I'd get the shad population started first. Then it's guaranteed.
I hope that helped.
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Posts: 238
Location: Rhinelander | This is a very interesting topic for me. I just purchased land that includes a 30 acre lake, max depth 8-9 feet, with the majority around 5'. Will musky thrive in this little lake if I stock them this fall?
I was thinking musky in the 10'-14" range. How many? One per acre to start or stock more? The lake now holds crappie, pike, a ton of blue gill, some decant size bass and bullheads. Have seen some walleye, where they came from I have no idea. The lake has a small creek that connects to a larger 90 acre lake, but the 90 acre lake isn't suppose to have walleye either.
This lake did have a winter kill this year with the extended late ice and large amount of snow cover. I am looking at adding one or more windmill aerators to help in the long winter months.
Good idea for musky or am I dreaming? |
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Posts: 43
Location: Warrenville,IL | To continue this subject....look at what I got out of a "pond" yesterday.
http://www.customfish.com/2008_05_01_archive.html#23706695421244834...
In fact if you go thru the archives for the past month or so...everything we've caught has come out of ponds. Big walleye, 20"+ smallies, 20"+ largemouth. A muskie or two would have no problem adjusting.
And if you look at the size of the walleye...it's been doing fine in a 10 acre pond for some time. We've caught 3 others that size in the past as well from the same pit.
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| Reef Hawg,
Will the DNR hatcheries sell you baby muskies? I want to put up an aquarium display in our Nature Center at Camp 5 (Laona) with "live" Northern Wisconsin fish and would like to include a muskie.
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Posts: 43
Location: Warrenville,IL | Actually, a pet shop will sell you one. And it's legal.
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Posts: 3518
Location: north central wisconsin | Muskrich. That sounds like a great project. I'd be willing to bet that the DR would give you one for something that would be for an educational purpose such as that, though could be wrong. We never paid for our fish, though we raised them from frye in our ponds, then the DNR counted them as fish that they stocked. Really was a won win for both of us, as we got more fish for the river, and they got to boost their numbers without having to raise the fish. With that said, we will not be getting fish anymore due to the VHS threat, and for the subsequent fact that we would no longer be able to seinne/transport minnows to feed the muskies, and we just could not afford to purchase all of the feed neccessary. It was a pretty good run while it lasted though. |
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